


Adieu, My Dear Boy

by DustySoul



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ghost Sex, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 03:43:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5359799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustySoul/pseuds/DustySoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurens is dead, but not yet gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adieu, My Dear Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for this prompt on the kinkmeme  
> http://hamiltonprompts.tumblr.com/post/133001834952/ghost-laurens-lams-fic-with-ghostsex
> 
> Thanks to featherquillpen for helping me with the title, and thank you to saffron612 for the lovely beta work!
> 
> If you want to poke me on tumblr I'm at dusty-soul

He wishes to be alone with his misery and his memories. 

He works late into the night. That letter rests on the side of his desk all the while. He works so late it would be rude to wake up his wife by slipping into bed with her. And, really, he means only to rest his eyes when he settles into the armchair. It’s only for a moment. It’s only so they’ll focus on the words again. Then he can go back to writing.

But once resting that eternal place between wakefulness and sleep steals over him. He’s unaware of the study around him, even the chair he doses in is non-existent to his mind. Yet, even while immobile and more than halfway to sleep, he is aware of something. It may just be his own quiet existence. 

For a time he meditates.

Some other presence lights upon his dark senses. It is a tentative touch, barely there and barely felt. Like a kiss brushing against his forehead or words spoken so close they whisper over his lips. It feels as though the entity might blink out of existence if not carefully kindled. It is as a candle in the wind. And Hamilton does not neglect it.

As in sleep, the time during the in-between seems to stretch without taking up any length at all.

The presence seems to grow, slowly, becoming steadily warmer, slightly more corporeal. By the time it has swaddled Hamilton’s mind, it seems as if no time has passed at all from when he first settled into the armchair.

There is a soft press of lips against his own, a sensation engaging for the first time his physical body and not just his spirit. He starts awake at the contact, blinking in the dark and empty room.

And yet he hadn’t been alone a moment ago.

He places his fingers to his lips. It tastes of ink and his own sweat.

And yet there had been something, _someone._ He’s sure.

—

The next time it happens he’s fallen asleep in his law office. It starts out just the same, an awareness of himself and nothing more until there comes the company of the awareness of another.

There is the same warmth, the same rush of affection that almost feels foreign in its strength and insanity. And there is… some small peace as well. 

The presence sits with him for a long while. It doesn’t try to reach out again.

What finally shatters the moment is Burr knocking on his door.

“I thought you’d fallen asleep.” He he pokes his head in. “You should head home, it’s getting late.”

“But I have to-”

“What ever it is, it will keep until morning. Besides, how can you do your best work if you’re drooling on your papers? You’ll just have to copy them all down again.”

Hamilton absently rubs his chin and the corner of his mouth. Then he looks down at his desk and finds he can’t remember what it is he was even working on. “Very well.” He sighs, going to grab his coat.

They walk most of the way to their respective houses in silence. They might as well be miles away instead of walking abreast for all Hamilton is aware of the company. After a few blocks Burr stops trying to make conversation.

—

The presence becomes a constant companion. It is distant while he’s awake and working. Barely there and too easy to forget, but never gone. Dark circles now constantly shadow his eyes and his face goes gaunt. Never before, not even in war, has he been so restless and sleepless. 

It worries his dear Eliza, how could it not? He accepts her comfort and affection but it doesn’t ease him. Which is why it’s easier to stay while she and the children vacation upstate. He still has so much work to do, and maybe when she returns her gentle caresses and kind words will actually make him _feel_ ** _something_**.

—

A week slips by without him getting proper rest. Maybe it was a mistake to stay behind. Now there is with no one to coax him into bed, even if just to lie down for an hour and rest his eyes.

More time slips by before he manages the feat himself. He’s so overcome it seems he might have a chance at truly deep sleep, with dreams, with a total loss of awareness.

And the presence makes itself known and utterly felt for the first time in a long while. Alexander sighs. The awareness of it settles over him. He can breathe. Maybe he even sleeps.

Finger’s bush across his face but he’s too exhausted to startle or even react. A hand, warm and steady, rests over his heart.

“ _My Laurens.”_ He whispers. And suddenly he _can’t_ breathe. He’s choking, gasping, crying. But he is not jolted out of this slumber.

Those hands cup his cheeks, whip his tears away. “I’m here, my dear boy.”

“Laurens,” he calls again, “John.”

“ _Shhh_.”

And all at once Alexander’s body feels like lead. He couldn’t so much as turn his head even if he desired to. “You’re haunting me?”

“I never meant to hurt you.” Laurens’ voice is heavy, thick with sorrow.

“It’s not your fault you died.”

The sensation of those fingers, of Laurens lying next to him in the bed, fade. It’s enough to send Hamilton into a panic, thinking his dearest friend was leaving him once more. But Laurens assured him, not through action nor through words, that this was not the case. And, once Hamilton is calmed, he gives the living another insight.

“No…” Hamilton whimpers Lauren’s last remembrance while alive floods his being. “No…”

_There is no future for me in this new country for me. I shall only bring ruin and shame to the man whom I love so dearly, and so naturally, if I am to remain alive. And this, it is my last chance to die honorably in service of a greater good and not because of my own greed._

Lauren’s state of existence, so fickly, settles between the mentally expansive and physically insignificance. He cannot brush away Hamilton’s tears, can only share in pain, in regret, in mourning, and in love. It is not enough. And Hamilton wishes for nothing more than to be able to hold his amour. But for that, Laurens would need to be alive. What small caresses he has managed have been more of a pretty illusion than anything substantive and truly felt.

Questions and accusations flit though Hamilton’s mind.

_Surely you knew how the news of your death would affect me._

_Of course, but in my own grief and madness I thought it mattered less than the future of ruin I kept us from._

_You thought only of yourself!_

And he can feel how the accusation stings, can feel the shame and hurt rise in Laurens.

_I’m sorry._

_I love you._

_I love you so, so much. I wish you hadn’t left me._

_I know, I’m here now._

_No you aren’t!_

Together they hunker down through the hurricane of their shared emotions. It leaves Hamilton with an unparalleled exhaustion. It is not just that he is sleepless and haunted, but that he is mentally, emotionally, and spiritually spent. Yet this is just the eye of the storm.

Laurens’ presence presses against him, into his chest. It is as if the spirit is trying to burry himself in his heart. The phantom sensation sends Hamilton’s nerves ablaze. It gives him new energy and new passion with which to fight the exhaustion which had been haunting him.

It is a yellow sky when the world has for so long been a blur of rain and gray and darkness. If he had not been paralyzed with exhaustion, completely unaware of his own body, he would have gasped and arched his back. 

He receives pleasure, though not through his skin and nerves. Instead it is shakes him straight to his soul, his core. And it has him rolling and stretching languidly. 

Laurens sets the pace, the gentle ebb and flow of sensation, awareness, and being. At moments it seems to be a tease. Other times it feels as if his dear friend is merely taking his time, an indulgence they were so rarely afforded in war.

Nothing exists except for the two of them, tangled together more tightly than they have ever been entangled before.

Heat and desire flow between them. The intensity of Lauren’s loyalty and unutterable affection is enough to drive all misery and memory from his mind. There was no moment before this one. And as there is no sense of time nor an awareness of a corporeal existence there will be no moment after. They’ve known each other forever and have forever with which to know each other.

It’s bliss and the bliss builds. It becomes so concentrated as to push what little there is away. The lack of sensation, the nothingness, only lasts for a second but while it goes on it goes for an eternity. It is only coming down from it afterwards does he know how long it lasted for.

And he is so, so grateful Laurens’ presence hasn’t faded.

_I’ll have to go soon._ His friend tells him.

_No…_

_I will. But I won’t leave you until you are ready._

_I’ll never be ready._

_Yes you will. You’re so strong… You’ve been through so much… You’ll find away, my dear boy, you know you always have. But sleep now. Shhh… I’m right here._

And so he does. It is the first real rest he’s had since he got the news in that damned letter.

—

In the morning he wakes alone, utterly and completely alone. 

He burns the letter, and it the only he has ever destroyed. 


End file.
